South Coast Sailboats

Trailer Swaying on the highway:

My SC22 is heavily modified, which added a lot
of additional weight to the trailer. I used to tow the package
with a Ford extended Econoline 350 Van (a miserable towing vehicle
at best). I moved on to a Chevy Pickup and that in and of itself
was a big improvement in towing in general, and exentually a Chevy
K3500 Dualie, but I still had many towing problems. Common problems
(all trailer related) included and were not limited to severly
cracked trailer members, multiple broken wheel hubs, smashed wheel
bearings and broken bearing races, a snapped axel, multiple flat
tires, I even had a steel wheel tear itself from the hub. All
kinds of non-boating fun on the side of the road.

As previously mentioned, I also had big time
(reads scary) trailer swaying problems. The big and final fix
turned out to be that the boat and gear was weighting in at about
3000 lbs. The axel even though it was sitting on a hugh stack
of leaf springs(rated much higher), the axel was only rated to
2000 lbs.

After replacing the axel once and shifting
it to different positions to try to stop the trailer swaying (with
no luck), I finally gave up on the single axel approach. The big
and final repair involved dropping the existing running gear and
going to a brand new tandem drop axel or dual axel running gear
setup. To this setup I added 4 brand new high pressure trailer
tires (the higher pressure allows you to carry more weight per
wheel). In one repair all problems completely dissapeared. I chose
to go with the drop axel because it lowered the trailer for dipping
purposes. I also added two large wheel fenders. This was for two
reasons. First, it minimized the stuff flying off the wheels.
Second, it provides a way to scamper up on to the boat with out
a ladder.

The cost $1200 complete and installed. Didn't
make the boat pretty, didn't make it go any faster, but I haven't
spent ten minutes on the side of the road ever since.